Cuccinelli Donates Value of Gifts From Businessman

Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli speaks at the Battleground Forum, Aug. 9, 2013, at the Prince William campus of George Mason University in Manassas, Va. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia’s attorney general and Republican candidate for governor, announced Tuesday that he made a donation to a charity roughly equal to the $18,000 in gifts he received from businessman Jonnie Williams.

The donation comes as Mr. Cuccinelli trails in the polls behind Democrat Terry McAuliffe and may serve to distance himself from Mr. Williams and his dietary supplement company, Star Scientific Inc., which has been a drag on Mr. Cuccinelli’s campaign.

“I wanted you to know that in recent days, I’ve managed to arrange to send a check of $18,000 to a Richmond-based charity,” Mr. Cuccinelli said in a video statement issued Tuesday. ”I did this to resolve any questions surrounding the matter concerning Star Scientific. I made the decision to send the check because it is the right thing to do, plain and simple,” the attorney general added.

The gifts to Mr. McDonnell and his family, including $15,000 for catering for a daughter’s wedding, have led to federal and state investigations into whether the governor received the gifts in return for helping Mr. Williams. Mr. McDonnell has said his support of Star Scientific was part of his role as Virginia governor, since the company is based near Richmond.

In July, Mr. Cuccinelli said he would not return his gifts—they included private travel, vacations at Mr. Williams’s lake home, and a catered Thanksgiving dinner. “There are some bells you can’t un-ring,” said Mr. Cuccinelli. And in August, he said his family’s needs prevented him from returning the monetary value of the gifts. The Cuccinellis have seven children.

On Tuesday, he said in his video, “This is something that I would have liked to have done sooner, but like most Virginians, writing a check for $18,000 is not a simple matter for my family and me. It’s taken a while to get our funds together.”

Mr. Cuccinelli did not initially disclose on state financial disclosure records some $5,000 of the gifts from Mr. Williams, or his stock holdings in Star Scientific, but he later amended his disclosure forms. He was cleared of disclosure violations by Richmond’s Commonwealth’s Attorney, who conducted an investigation into the omissions this year.

His opponent in the governor’s race, Mr. McAuliffe, is a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee and a close friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton, and has some clouds over his own campaign.

An electric-car company called GreenTech, which Mr. McAuliffe helped found, used a special U.S. visa program for foreign investors–in this case, Chinese businessmen—to raise money for venture. The company is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, though Mr. McAuliffe is not under investigation. But a Senate review of the matter is holding up the confirmation of nominee for a top job at the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. McAuliffe quietly resigned from the company in December. He has said he did not seek special treatment from the government for the visa approvals.

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